Between the Lines

Don't Double Click that Big Letter A

Have you ever double clicked on the Application Menu icon in the upper left expecting the menu  to rollout, only to see the application close?

This is more common now that the application menu icon is a little bigger “Big Red A” in AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD 2010 as well as other Autodesk products. I did this once while on the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour.

Make sure to take your time when selecting the application menu icon and not get impatient and click it again causing a double click event and close the application. Patience is a virtue.

Cheers,
Shaan

Project Cooper - Give it a New Name

Project Cooper is not the final name just a project name while the product is still in development phases. What do you think it should be called?  Help us give Project Cooper a permanent name!  Take this short, multiple-choice survey.  Should take less than 2 minutes, and we appreciate your input.

The SurveyMonkey survey link is live at:  Click Here to take survey

Have you tried Project Cooper with Win 7, or even XP?  If the answer is no then give it a try or mention it to someone that needs a super simple precision design tool. Be sure to email labs.cooper@autodesk.com with any comments you might have.

Autodesk University - Virtual

For those unable to attend the main event in Las Vegas in Las Vegas this is a great opportunity to experience part of it from the comfort of your own computer. People from around the world can now attend Autodesk University “virtually”!

Complete details are on the AU Virtual website.
Event date: December 1-4, 2009.

• 50+ Classes and Sessions- streamed “live”
• A “Premium Pass” (full access) is only US$99
• All Subscription customers receive a free “Premier Pass”.
• A “Free Pass” (limited access) is available to anyone. 

www.autodesk.com/auvirtual

There is no virtual beer bust so you will have to arrange that activity yourself. :-)

Cheers,
Shaan

Videos of the Subscription Advantage Packs for AutoCAD Architecture 2010 & AutoCAD MEP 2010

I posted 3 videos over on the Between the Walls blog for those that are AutoCAD Architecture 2010,and AutoCAD MEP 2010 and on subscription. You can now get the new Subscription Advantage Packs from the Autodesk Subscription Center.

The covered Subscription Advantage Packs:

• AutoCAD Architecture 2010 Renovation Subscription Advantage Pack
• AutoCAD Architecture 2010 Productivity Subscription Advantage Pack
• AutoCAD MEP 2010 Duct Transition Subscription Advantage Pack

Videos of the Subscription Advantage Packs for AutoCAD Architecture 2010 & AutoCAD MEP 2010

Also checkout the AutoCAD 2010 Timesaver Tools Subscription Advantage Pack as well as many other Autodesk 2010 product Subscription Advantage Packs.

AU 2009 Bloggers Social Invitations Going Out This Week

I am planning on sending out invitations to the Autodesk University 2009 Bloggers Social this week. Make sure to sign up for consideration to the 2nd annual special event held at Autodesk University. The Blogger Social will be held on Monday November 30th, 2009 from 6:30PM to 8PM.

Autodesk University 2009 Blogger Social Signup Form

Spread the word to fellow Autodesk related bloggers!

Cheers 
Shaan

Autodesk Announces Support for Windows 7

The official supported products for the new Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System announced today. I have been running most Autodesk products without a problem for many months now. There was also a new Project Cooper released.

Autodesk Announces Support for Windows 7

Industry-Leading Design, Engineering and Entertainment Software to Be Compatible with Latest Windows Operating System

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), a leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, has announced support for Windows 7. Effective today, Autodesk will support customers using nine products including AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD LT 2010 and the Autodesk Inventor 2010 family of software, on Windows 7.

"Windows 7 was designed with the customer in mind," said Mark Relph, senior director for Windows Product Management at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased to have the support of Autodesk to offer our mutual customers an easy way to do the things they want on a PC."

For the 2010 product line, Autodesk will support nine products on Windows 7. These products are Autodesk Inventor 2010, Autodesk Inventor LT 2010, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD LT 2010, AutoCAD Architecture 2010, AutoCAD Electrical 2010, AutoCAD Mechanical 2010, AutoCAD MEP 2010 and Autodesk Algor Simulation 2010 software. Autodesk will support Windows 7 for most of its other products as updated versions are released.

"Autodesk is committed to delivering software that meets and exceeds our customers' functionality requirements, while providing them the broadest possible choice of operating systems," said Chris Bradshaw, Autodesk chief marketing officer. "Autodesk and Microsoft share a goal of making the tasks our customers perform every day easier and faster. We look forward to extending support for Windows 7 across our portfolio so all our customers can benefit from the improvements in this robust new operating system."

Windows 7 offers many powerful new features and functionality that will benefit Autodesk customers, including full support for 64-bit computing, Windows search and improved performance. Multi-touch support has also become a core capability of Windows 7, and Autodesk is developing new software to take advantage of this technology. At the Windows 7 media launch event, Autodesk will demonstrate Project Cooper, a preview of new technology for simple drawing and drafting that has been engineered to take advantage of the multi-touch capabilities of Windows 7. The Autodesk Project Cooper Technology Preview is now available for free download at http://www.autodesk.com/projectcooper. “

AutoCAD 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack - TimeSaver Tools

Get a preview of future product features now as an Autodesk Subscription customer.
Available NOW on the Subscription Center

Hide and isolate objects: A top AUGI request, AutoCAD users now have the ability to turn on and off objects regardless of layer. Because of this key timesaver, you no longer need to track down objects across many layers in order to hide information that isn’t relevant while you update a drawing. And you can quickly show or hide the objects again as needed.

Select Similar: Another top AUGI request, now you can save time selecting objects with similar properties (such as same layer or linetype, blocks or xrefs with same names, etc.).

Create Selected: With this new tool, you can quickly create a new object to your drawing based on the properties of another selected object, by matching the object type and properties.

Hatch to back: Another key AUGI request, this new capability makes it easier for you to select all hatches in a drawing, then send them to the back of the drawing, streamlining the process of working with hatches.

This Add on can also be installed on multiple other AutoCAD 2010 based products such as AutoCAD Architecture 2010, AutoCAD Mechanical 2010, and AutoCAD MEP 2010

There are also other Subscription Advantage Packs now available for many Autodesk products such as:

AutoCAD Architecture 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack - Renovation Extension 2010

AutoCAD MEP 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack
Duct Transition Extension 2010

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack - Point Clouds, Roundabout Layout, and General Enhancements

AutoCAD® Map 3D 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack - Point Clouds

And many more!

.

Autodesk Project Cooper

Autodesk Project Cooper is now live for you to spread the word for others that do not need the power of AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT but want a simple yet precise sketching product.

cnet article: Autodesk launches Project Cooper for Windows 7

www.autodesk.com/projectcooper

AutoCAD Architecture Designed Buildings

The Autodesk Marketing Team is actively looking for compelling images of AutoCAD Architecture-designed multiuse buildings for use in upcoming marketing visualization images. 

It should be easy to find some that would like some visibility and promotion of their architectural designs. I know when I visited Kuwait last year, the region was predominantly using AutoCAD Architecture and were involved in these two buildings under construction.

If you are interested in submitting a project for consideration, please contact Kyle Herring at kyle.herring@autodesk.com for details. 

Deadlines for image submission are rapidly approaching, so act quickly if you’d like to have your project considered for use.

 

Cheers,
Shaan

Boston See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Event Tomorrow

It should be a great event with Lynn Allen and myself showing AutoCAD based products and their new power as well as  their interoperability with other Autodesk products. AutoCAD is not only a general purpose Swiss army knife of 2D but is also powerful in 3D which means AutoCAD is a 5D (2D +3D) CAD system! ;-)

Sign Up for the last two locations for the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour.

Tuesday October 20 Boston, MA 

Thursday October 22 Washington DC

We might even get blessed with the talent of  DJ Robbie Rob aka Rob Cohee show up at the Boston event. Check out Rob’s latest work to highlight the new Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Inventor 2010.

DJ Robbie Rob mixxes up a little ditty demonstrating the features and benefits of the Autodesk Inventor 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack. Key enhancements for our subscription customers include DWG... “

I have something special planned for this weeks events especially on Thursday the 22nd in Washington DC.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Shaan

Columbus, Montreal, and Edmonton this Week, "Stay Thirsty My Friends"

It has been a busy week of events for the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour. We started the week in Columbus Ohio, Montreal Quebec, and then snowy cold Edmonton Alberta.  Next week I will be in Boston and Washington DC and hope to see you there.

Sign Up for the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour.

Tuesday October 20 Boston, MA 

Thursday October 22 Washington DC

While spending so much time in an airport or staring at the back of a airplane seat is not exciting, it is all worth it to meet customers and hearing what they like and don't like about our products. I  was wearing a pink shirt in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month at the events as was colleague Lynn Allen.

 

AutoCAD Tip:
Want to Move, Copy, and Scale multiple objects in AutoCAD? Try the AutoCAD Express Tool command MOCORO.

Odds & Ends

Some of the taste bud highlights from last weeks tour was the famous Graeters Ice Cream in Columbus and Molson’s Rickards Red Draft in Canada. I also replenished my stash of Canadian candies such as the Nestle Smarties and Aero bars.

Delta Airlines now has speedy WiFi on most flights! I love Delta.

Has anyone else noticed since the baggage fees started on airlines the dramatic rise in the size of bags being attempted to be carried onboard with passengers causing delays in flight departures?

If I were in airline marketing, I would see that any person identified as a frequent flier from another airline would get special attention on my airline's flights. I would make it my business to know who the passengers were on each flight and give a heads up to the flight crew. Opportunity walks and talks.

I have now been asked twice if I was the guy from the Dos Equis beer commercial. Must be my grey beard. I don't really look like this guy other than the gray hair and I am certainly not “the most interesting guy in the world”.  It is odd as this is the third time I have been confused with a beer character.

The first was from a bottle of Rogue ale that was brought to AU 2006 by a customer to show me the likeness of me and the image on the bottle.  At that AU I found the real doppelganger for that beer image, it was AutoCAD Plant 3D team’s own Peter Quinn. Then there was that time I was confused with former Budweiser beer commercial star Spuds MacKenzie but that's another long story I will save until a later date.

Cheers,
Shaan

See The Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour 2009 First Week Completed

Had a great week with Lynn Allen, Heather, Lisa, many Autodesk partners, and hundreds of customers last week on the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour. We were in Orlando, Atlanta, and San Diego. I met a great amount of customers from single person design firms to some major cruise lines and movie studios using Autodesk products and looking to learn more. I covered a wide array of Autodesk products in the AutoCAD Family including AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD Architecture 2010, AutoCAD MEP 2010, AutoCAD Mechanical 2010, AutoCAD Plant 3D, and some future cool things like the upcoming Alias Sketch for AutoCAD.

The travel schedule was a little tight with the three events one after the other but we made it.

Sign up to attend the free events. Lynn Allen and myself will be winging around the North American continent in October.

October 6 Orlando, FL 

October 7 Atlanta, GA 

October 8 San Diego, CA 

October 13 Columbus, OH 

October 14 Montreal, QC 

October 15 Edmonton, AB 

October 20 Boston, MA 

October 22 Washington DC

I am posting photos of the events.
See The Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour 2009 Photo Gallery

Tomorrow I take off for this weeks leg of the tour in Columbus, Montreal, and Edmonton. I hope to see you at the events!

Cheers,
Shaan

For those social media butterflies on Twitter you can follow me at @mrcadman or now on the new Google Wave at 3dhurley@googlewave.com

The Final episode of The TeknoChronicles of Z - Episode 10: Z End of Z Road

The ending of the funny series started in March 2009 was so unexpected. Finally get to see TJ out of his blue latex suit.

“The TeknoChronicles of Z - Episode 10: Z End of Z Road
Venturing out of his TeknoCave, Z is on a final mission to learn the true identity of Dome City's greatest villain. Will he finally uncover the truth about his bosses, his projects, and his use of AutoCAD to save the Fate of Humanity? Or is this the end of the road for our friend Z?”

http://autocad.autodesk.com/?nd=humor

How About an Aztec Calendar in AutoCAD?

Occasionally I will do a crazy file to beat an AutoCAD feature into submission or exercise boundary test cases and get rid of some energy. I had a little too much energy and fun last night. In this case it was Polylines and hatches. I finished this AutoCAD drawing at 4AM and not a single crash or performance hit.. Hatches are definitely improved in AutoCAD 2010 based products.

I obtained the rough geometry from a postscript file that was generated from an actual Aztec sunstone photo. I might as well have re-drawn from scratch as I had to edit all the geometry and then had to do all the hatching. I don't think I could have done this with any other product either illustration or CAD and so efficiently. I could also take this and make a 3D drawing and use the AutoCAD 2010 Feature to Print 3D to a physical object. Looks pretty cool to me. The original is a carving into a stone but, my version I did it as an inlaid wood style sculpture. When I really got into the geometry I was amazed at the complex geometry and creativity of this Aztec piece all while having a function of determining and tracking dates in Mexico and Central America.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/btl/3979126861/

“Xiuhpohualliis the Aztec year (xiuhitl) count (pohualli). One solar year consists of 360 named days and 5 nameless (nemontemi). The year was broken into 18 periods of twenty days each, sometimes compared to the Julian month”. 

~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_calendar.

Apparently the Aztecs have been to the Autodesk University and over indulged in the AUGI Beer Bust.

Just doing final packing and preparation for the start of the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour. I will be traveling to warm Orlando Florida tomorrow and presenting there on Tuesday.

Cheers,
Shaan

Next week Orlando, Atlanta, and San Diego with Lynn Allen

I am preparing for the See the Difference with AutoCAD 2010 Tour next week kicking off in Orlando Florida along with Lynn Allen.  This will be a nice weather change from the snow we got in Utah yesterday although the day prior was 90 degrees. We went from Summer to winter in under 12 hours.

In preparing I am also sharpening up my Autodesk product skills as I will be working and showing multiple AutoCAD based products during the event as well as other items. I did a fun design from my past, a 3D Heat Exchanger Tube Bundle in AutoCAD 2010.

 

Now back to my locked up dark cage to concentrate on preparing for the tour without being distracted.

My attention span is similar to Dug the Dog featured on the Disney/Pixar movie Up.
“Hi there, my name is Dug... SQUIRRELL!”

-Shaan